Updated post 2004 - ^{Rider #111 2004 Motogiro D’Italia}

The Giro is an endurance event. It is not a race in its current format. 250k per day on open roads taking in alpine passes, small local roads, main highways & a few sections of dual carriageway. (2002/ 3/4 routes)

The event consists of the road mileage which you are expected to cover at a reasonable pace, you are given set times to leave in the morning (always the same in ’02, some differences in 03/04) & the times you are expected to check in at the destinations during the day. This is where you can blast off & have fun with your mates or just cruise along & enjoy the scenery. When you arrive at the checkpoints there will be tests for you to do. These were simple timed rides over set distances e.g 30m in 9 seconds. You are timed to the 1000^{th of a second & accuracy here wins the event, not who gets where first. Your engine must be running when you check in to the controls & when you do these tests, I lost about 30 places in the final results because of this basic error. I won one of the timed tests so they are not impossible.}

After a rather stupid arrangement in 04 (where anyone finishing in the first 20 places of a special test on day 1, breaking down & spending the rest of the event in the bus, finished above one who rode all 5 days but finished lower than 20th in the tests) the timing/scoring will be different for 05.

A peaky fast bike will be good for the blasting about bit & potentially a pig in the tests. An easy starting engine (hot or cold) with a reliable tickover (when boiling hot) is a must in my opinion.

The bike must be in tip-top condition or you will fail. Just about every bike will experience some breakdown, minor or major depends on your preparation prior to the event. Your ability to handle minor breakdowns yourself will be essential if you are to finish the event. The Ducati backup mechanics do their best but have a busy time dealing with badly prep’d bikes & you are in the queue. It may take a day or longer to get the bike back, you may be lucky & they can fix you by the side of the road but you still may have to wait hours for them to get to you & then you’re way behind schedule. Be prepared

It is assumed that the engine has either been rebuilt for the event or within the last year or two. Even an engine with zero miles on the clock since the 1950s will require stripping & checking out. Even though the bearings may be perfect & bore unworn any garter oil seals used within the engine will have perished & will fail when asked to perform in extremes of heat & when used hard for 5 days in the Alps.

I rebuilt my MSDS without replacing mains & big end which were fine, likewise piston & bore were left untouched. The bore was worn but I reasoned a re-ring would be enough & a slack bore was preferable to risking a seizure on a freshly rebored one with a new piston that hadn’t been run in high ambient temperatures before. Some bikes did suffer from overheating & seizures & I suspect this was a contributory factor. I did use 200cc of Castrol R50 castor oil per day but the bike didn’t smoke it just laid down a lovely smell behind it! I used castor as there is no finer lubricant for hard used roller/ball bearing engines (of the 50/60s) especially in extreme temperatures. Not as good for plain bearings I’m told, a good quality 50w mineral oil is tops for them.

Whatever you use take some with you. Oil is available there naturally but perhaps not the make or grade you wish to use. I took 2L of R50 & a 500cc plastic bottle full for my tank bag.

All the seals & gaskets were fresh (not NOS) & normal race prep precautions were taken such as lock wiring of drain plugs & other fasteners likely to loosen. If you can’t lock wire them then a little blob of builders clear silicone seal will suffice between the fastener & the casing or whatever its holding on.

I didn’t change my clutch pressure spring (only one big one on a Parilla) & suffered from clutch slip when hitting the throttle hard on the uphill climbs – lesson learnt! Got new ones made now with 20% more poundage. The old one had settled over the years & was OK for 90% of the going but alpine pass climbing showed its age.

Reliable starting & idling depends on several factors: state of tune, carb, ignition & fuel. I’d go for a “sporting” rather than “racing” engine, a carb which can be tuned to tickover i.e got a throttle stop, manual advance retard of a points based ignition system firing a new coil & a new condenser both mounted out in the airflow.

The ignition changes for 04 on my Parilla made a huge difference, first kick starting & reliable tickover. Amal concentric carb & Vape (MZ) self generating CDI ign with 12v alternator. No battery needed although I did fit one .

The whole lot tuned to run on lead free standard pump fuel with the fuel additive of your choice for lead replacement/octane improvement. Leaded is available (watch where the Italians fuel up!) but UL is the norm of 93/95 octane.

The petrol is different too & several paint jobs were ruined by it. Whatever is in it eats the filler cap rubbers (cork seems OK) & allows the fumes & gas to seep out. Replace your (perfectly good at home) rubber with one made of Viton sheet or risk a paint job (at best, at worst a fire).

The smell of it is unlike UK gas & very pungent, it must be a different formulation for the higher ambient temperature.

Fit a good quality new sparkplug & waterproof cap. Carry spare plugs & consider a harder grade one than you’d normally fit as you will be working the engine harder than you ever have before.

I found a medium reach plug in the long reach plughole gave better starting & no adverse effect on performance. Apparently this is a common mod on sporting Italian bikes.

I ditched my 27mm Dellorto SS1 for a new 24mm (the port size) Amal Concentric. They are simple carbs to tune & can give a reliable tickover having a throttle stop screw, unlike the Dellorto (yes you can “hang” an SS1 slide but I wouldn’t call it reliable). I took spare main jets up & down from what was in but never changed them. Petrol lines were clear plastic wired in place & with clear inline filters after the taps.

Had a Morini with fuel starvation caused by an in line filter this year, very slow flowing taps seem to be fitted to some of the bikes as standard (no not bunged up with muck!) so check this out before fitting an external filter

It made for a nice tractable engine, good up to & through the midrange for climbing. I suppose ultimate top speed would be lower but we managed to keep up with most (not on the climbs with the clutch!).

Breathers were routed out to the end of the back mudguard. A lot of the Italian lightweights have engine breathers that just vent straight out of a little chimney, the Parilla has a “pepper pot”, its worth devising something to take the fumes out to the back of the bike.

Exhaust silencing, according to the organisers, has to be fitted even if (like my MSDS) the bike was never supplied with it. This proved to be a slightly ambiguous statement (intentionally?). I fitted a full road legal “Silentum” similar to the original Parilla road bike item. The Italians used “straight through” pipes with a natty little drop down baffle fitted to the open end. A lever on the bars raised the baffle for out of town running & dropped it again when required. These “silenziatore chiusino”  are available from:

2004 was going to run a straight pipe & “chiu” but chickened out, several Italians with unsilenced bikes but scrutineering for foreigners tends to be “different”.

I may be at odds with some people here who would like to modernise their systems to 12v & fit electronic ignition. If you have done the conversion, proved it reliable in extreme heat & can supply spares for it & fix it yourself them go for it. If you break down no one but you will be able to sort it out. ***** ****

The standard 6v systems can be made reliable & if you break something then spares may well be found for you in Italy & the mechanics will understand what needs doing.

Electrical failures were the most common problems people experienced. Failure to charge & no sparks being the main ones. 90% of the failures were down to bad preparation. 50 year old coils & condensers melting, burnt out old points, duff batteries, dyno brushes worn or oily.

****04 I changed to the super-reliable MZ CDI, points left in place as a final backup if the worst happened but it just went & went….see the site link below .

Get your CEV dynamo stator & rotor coils checked out for continuity, get the commutator clean & if needed skimmed back to a smooth finish. Fit new brushes, you can easily file back car dynamo brushes (not starter motor ones) to fit. Old ones seem to be porous & always smear the comm. Get a new regulator if you can, this is a very important item & the key to a reliable system. Bosch originals can occasionally be found but an MZ one can be used instead. These are cheap & easily obtained:

I used a new Honda 70 Cub coil & condenser but there are plenty of other “points” coils available small enough to be fitted. Do not use a coil intended for a CDI as they are generally too low a resistance & may flatten your battery. The dyno will only give about 40w to charge your battery, a low resistance coil (some as low as 1ohm) can draw 6amps using 36 watts of your 40 available. The various connections from dyno to battery & the regulator itself will absorb about 10w so you are in deficit even with a good system. Try & find some new points or modify some alternatives to fit. Automotive condensers/capacitors are good & very cheap.

Fit a new battery, ideally a modern “no maintenance” or jelly filled one as used on trail bikes. The old acid filled ones are ok but watch for spillages & if you must use one get a japanese made Yuasa one with a breather tube you can route away from the shiny stuff. Carry a spare, not so easy with the acid filled type, I carried a Cyclon Monobloc 6v 8ah in my tank bag & as the main battery:

I had a new Cyclon fail on me during the event. On the hottest day (40deg C) it just stopped working! No output whatsoever. Fitted the spare & away we went loosing about half an hour, it would have been less but I was a bit slow on the uptake & didn’t even think of the possibility of zero output from the battery. I have two ideas why it failed. Firstly it was a “new” battery I bought at a show at a bargain price, maybe it wasn’t that new or it was second class/reject stock. More likely was the position of the battery directly behind the cylinder of the engine, it was too hot to hold when I took it off. For 4 days it had been bathed in hot air from the engine & perhaps it had had enough! I will be mounting both batteries out in the airstream next time just as they did on the works Motogiro Parillas in the 50s, the clues were there all the time!

Italian OE switchgear is possibly the worst ever produced. The “pointed key” ignition switches are hopeless in the extreme. To use these to control ignition & charging is an act of faith. By all means leave them in place for aesthetic/originality reasons but bypass them for the ignition & charging circuits. If you’re not an electrics man then become one – you need to! A good bike electrician will be able to do it for you. Just use a good quality automotive on/off blade switch for ignition & make sure the charging light circuit works for your peace of mind. It works as an “ignition on” light when the engine is stopped & goes out when the charge kicks in – all very reassuring. You won’t need any lights during the event. Make sure you have a working brakelight & horn.

If you mount two batteries only connect one to the system & hold the other in reserve. Don’t be tempted to connect the two in parallel. If you do & the charging stops you will flatten both & be stranded. Better to flatten the first, be aware of your problem & carry on to the next stop on your spare. If you are riding in a group you can get your flat battery charged by someone with a working charging system as you ride.

Take a small 6v/12v battery charger with you such as an Optimate. Ensure you have a continental 2 pin plug fitted or a travellers adapter to suit. The mains are 220/240 volts so USA 110v chargers wont work. If you have a total loss of charging two fully charged 6v 8ah batteries will last about 6 hours of riding. Get friendly with some one with another spare battery & you can finish the event with no charging on your bike at all, just charge all the spares at night in your room.

Fit a fuse in the system & take it out at night. I used an automotive blade fuseholder fitted with a 15A fuse. As well as disabling the ignition & preventing flat batteries from someone playing with the switches it also guards against the battery discharging into the dynamo if one of the contacts in the regulator sticks.

Just as you need a good engine you need reliable cycle parts, wheels that turn, brakes that stop & controls that are smooth & easy to operate.

Get your brakes relined with modern material & drums skimmed if required, check for loose spokes & of course you must have recently fitted decent tyres & tubes with no patches in them. I’d replace wheel bearings as a matter of course. The old type wheel bearings are usually unshielded & bits of felt are used to retain the grease.If you intend to ride in a “spirited” fashion on the mountain descents I’d recommend washing out all the grease in your bearings & applying just a smear of high melting point grease. The brake hubs will get very hot & any excess grease can loosen & get flung out onto your drums – most amusing.

Better still fit new double shielded pre lubricated bearings & forget them. Correction! Check that the lube is actually in the bearing first – had one recently as dry as a bone.

Fit all new cables & carry a spare for clutch & throttle taped into place alongside the one in use ready to connect if needed. No need to take the bike to bits trying to route the spare in. Seal the ends with either rubber self amalgamating tape or old fashioned fabric electrical insulation tape. Why no spare front brake cable? If that fails on the alpine passes you wont be needing anything other than a doctor !

Do check the brake cable very carefully & I’d recommend a new one professionally made with no solderless nipple. One bike sidelined with a terminal problem had the front brake cable snap as we loaded into the support van…..he was lucky to have had the breakdown !

The Italians are very much taken with solderless nipples on all cables even front brakes! These are a surefire trip to hospital, never use them on anything you can avoid them on. My MSDS rear brake cable inner has to pass through the operating lever so I cant avoid one. If you have to use them then always use two & carry spares on the free cable end.

Carry a spare innertube (you can usually find room under the tank) & strap a decent sized set of tyre levers to a frame tube. I carry 3 Melco 10” levers dropped into a length of old pushbike innertube & zip tied to the rear mudguard supports. A telescopic mountain bike pump will fit in your tank bag or for the terminally lazy a Co2 powered inflator.

Fit a cheap cycle speedometer to the front wheel & calibrate it to the wheel circumference. The OE Cev speedo merely serves to show you’re moving, any numbers indicated or recorded are purely for your amusement. The cycle speedo & mileometers are very accurate & will help you keep track of your progress alongside the very detailed roadbook you will be given. Dearer cycle speedos will have a clock as well as trip & total mileage functions. Provide some shade for the displays of these things as the sun burns out the LCDs when you are parked. Mine lasted a day!

Fitted an Enduro computer to a Morini I prepped for a friend. Quite dear but a wonderful bit of kit & very robust. Average speed, clock, stopwatch & more all in one.

Forks should have new seals fitted & I also put new NJB rear shocks on. They look like the originals but actually have some damping. Comfort may not be possible but some controlled movement in the suspension will make things at least bearable. If you can bear the derision of fellow (jealous) competitors then some sort of air/water filled saddle pads are ideal on top of the plank like original seats. I used a gel pad for a day or two until it went a funny shape & stayed like that. Heat again.

Unless you are piloting a real slug of a bike you shouldn’t need to gear down for the hills. Indeed the opposite ^{is true, I could have used an extra tooth on the gearbox sprocket. You will be crawling up the mountains from hairpin to hairpin anyway so you need a nice climbing gear which will let you make steady progress without either over revving or lugging the motor. Keep the engine spinning happily in the midrange & that way it will cool off better than if you rev its nuts off. If you gear down you run the risk of overheating & over revving for very little gain uphill & you loose out on top speed everywhere else. Long gearing, provided you can move off in first & ride clutch engaged at about walking pace, is ideal. You can really get some speed up downhill, climb adequately uphill & give the motor an easier time when cruising along.}

04 introduced another element – appalling road surfaces & mountain roads so sinuous that 2nd gear was used most of the time. Worth getting some idea of the local conditions before you gear the bike & perhaps take an alternative gearbox sprocket.

Fit a new chain & run it in before the event. “O” ring if you can get it. Carry a small aerosol of chain lube with you & use it daily at least. Dust is a problem so fresh lube helps. If you are using a split link carry a spare & clean the ouside of the link well & apply a blob of builders silicone seal to the link plate & retaining clip. When its dry put a blob of white paint on it so as you can check it out easily.

Use Nylock nuts everywhere you can, where you can’t use Locktite or locking wire. What can fall off will.

Lockwire your bar grips & if you have a manual advance lever (with full advance when the wire is slack) fit a rubber band to hold it on retard when you are starting. They have a habit of advancing themselves as you kick until it kicks back & hits you in the shin. Also handy when climbing to retard a touch.

Fit 3 good quality race numberplate holders before you arrive. They should be the standard 11x8 ovals used in most bike competitions. I favour the alloy type over the plastic, more rigid & will help stiffen any frame you build to support it. The side plates should go behind you & I will be making a combined battery holder & plate support for my next Giro. The front plate is often mounted level with the headlight glass & obscuring it. I prefer to mount it above & angled back at about 45deg. Then that working headlight will be of use! A third support can be added to the top yoke & you have a protected area behind the plate for cycle speedo, stopwatch etc. You are supplied by DE with self adhesive race numbers on an 11x8 white plastic oval sheet. Edge the plates with a rubber U section to avoid cuts should you be unfortunate enough to drop the bike.

All sort of timekeeping equipment can be seen from a Mig fighter cockpit stopclock to a sand eggtimer! I bought a large digital display sports stopwatch which was OK. The best system I saw was on an Italian bike where he’d used an old fashioned analogue stopwatch mounted in front of him with a linkage from the start button to near his clutch lever. As he crossed the startline for the test he pressed the linkage with his thumb & then went fairly quickly to within 3m of the finish & then judged his lunge across the finishline.

Get a magnetic tank bag, Oxford products do a small sports bag which holds all you will need.

Seems like a lot to carry about but the worst (best?) that can happen is that you don’t use them:

Plugs (one grade harder as well)

Points

Condenser (Automotive ideal)

Dyno brushes (maybe cutdown Automotive)

Coil (new “points” coil)

Control cables.

Wire, electrical & locking plus some thick soft iron wire as used for fencing.

Chain link

Chain lube

WD40 (tiny 100ml aerosol available)

Inner Tube

Puncture outfit & spare valves & caps

Tyre Pressure guage.

Pump & tyre levers

Zip ties

Head, exhaust, carb & rockerbox gaskets (or equivalent)

Araldite Rapid & Epoxy metal/ tank repair putty– one guy had a tap boss shear off.

6v Battery (Cyclon or jelly filled)

Spare fuses

Main jets. 1 size up & 1 down

200ml oil (per day!)

Fuses & a bulb for the ignition/charging light, headlight & tail light

Fuel additive lead replacement/octane improver.

Duct tape (few feet)

1m Petrol pipe, spare filter (1m? yes for an emergency siphon as well)

4m length of thin nylon rope. A few could have benefited from this simple towrope in 03.**

** If you do need a tow then by all means tie the rope to the towing bike (top rear shock mount) but don’t tie the towed bike to the other end. Pass the rope under the top yoke & spiral a couple of turns around the handlebar towards the clutch side handrubber where you will grip it to the bar. If the towing bike starts to go too fast or you get into a wobble or whatever just let go of the bar & the rope will release. Better than both of you getting into a big heap! The towed bike can use a little back brake to keep the line taut on corners & slowing down. If it gets slack then you will get a jolt when it tightens again possibly upsetting the towing riders balance.

For the man about town:

Mobile phone with “international roaming” allowed

Wetwipes/Airline freshen-up sachets

Some dry clean cotton rags

Visor/goggle cleaner

Film canister full of handcleaner

50 Euro note in helmet liner